Collaborative Tourism Planning as Adaptive Experiments in Emergent Tourism Settings by Maureen G.Reed

"Life is terribly similar to Football. Football requires individual ability however in reality it's a collective game; a game people play in groups. Isn't life so? No matter how talented you are, if you don't have a good team you lose. Yes, you lose..!"

That's a quote from a favorite Turkish movie of mine where the coach explains his players about life and football. Collaboration. That seems to be the word for successful sustainable tourism development. It is good to see that people have realized that we have to work together if we want to have a succesful future. This is especially good in a time that individualism is at its peak. Due to tourism fragmented nature, the parties who have interest in the tourism industry can have different values. Some may already be successful at achieving their goals however in the long run if the whole is not doing well then it is likely that they will also be impacted. And the impacts of tourism also are not distributed evenly in between the all interested parties. That is a problem. If you want me to bear the impacts then I should be involved to have my say in the development as well. According to Reed, collaboration is not enough on its own to create sustainable tourism development either. The knowledge of local power relations as well as mechanisms to keep these relations under control is important in achieving a healthy collaborative effort. No single institution should hold the power to make decisions on the tourism product development in a region. Collaborative decision making is explained by Jamal & Getz (1995) as, "a process of joint decision making among autonomous, key stakeholders... to resolve planning problems... and/or to manage issues related to planning and development." (Reed)

In a constantly adaptive planning process, the checks and balances should be set in place for constant, periodic feedback. After agreeing to work towards a common vision according to common values, regular evaluation of where the process is at plays an crucial role in especially Tourism development because of the dynamics of the industry. Whether social, economic or environmental dynamics are concerned, Tourism's fragmented nature will always have rapid change and require quick adaptations in order for it to be succesful sustainably.

The Concept of a Tourist Area Cycle of Evolution: Implications for Management of Resources by R.W. Butler

R.W Butler's Tourist Area Cycle of Evolution explains much of the tourism growth in Turkey in the 80s. Combined with Boosterism (Hall, 1999) much of the mediterranean landscape of Turkey has been attacked by hoards of investors and mass tourists following. I remember reading about towns in South Eastern Turkey where artist would gather to have "Blue Cruises" so to say. Just like Christaller explains in Butler's article, the southern Turkey was first discovered by the artist. One of my favorite books in high school was an autobiography of a well known Turkish author, called the "Memories of a Dinosour" and in there she talked about the exact evolution of the town of Bodrum in the Southern coast of Turkey. She was telling in the book about the poets and the painters that frequented the town back in the day and how they, slowly in time, ran away from Bodrum because of the attack of the tourists.

Now, this cycle seems inevitable for many tourism destinations. You cannot tell someone to not to come, especially if one of the economic drivers of the community is Tourism. So what can be done? There can be improvements on the seasonality of the destination to have a balance in the volume of visitors throughout the year. That can take some of the pressure off, however it may not as well. So here, at this point, it is crucial for one community to work with the other. The interconnectedness of the communities is key in achieveing a balanced and prosperous tourism industry.

When planning, or even just creating a vision, it must be kept in mind that communities are connected as in a web. It is then very important to have an inclusive and integrated plan to cope with the challenges together as well as reaping the benefits together. So even tough it seems like creating a vision for one community is a good idea, if that country has a tourism vision and an integrated plan according to that vision then it can control the usage of resources more efficiently and direct traffic evenly. Smart planning will give the communities some time to refresh themselves as well.

Yes, it is better to do a plan before the area reaches the development stage of the cycle where most of the local control has been lost or given over to the external, more politically and economically stronger parties, however, it is never late to rejuvinate the community. Although it is harder. The main problem the locals feel with the tourism going out of hand is that they lose control over it. They cannot decide what goes on in their back yard anymore and that would be frustrating for the most welcoming person of all.